Why Attend

The Phage Futures Congress will bring together peers from biotech companies and academia, along with experts from regulatory bodies, pharmaceutical companies and government institutions, to discuss how to actively progress clinical science and viable phage application routes to market. You will hear about:

Insights into investment drivers for phage therapy from NIH and Boehringer Ingelheim

Facts on how to manufacture GMP phage

Applications to overcome multi-drug resistance with combined approaches such as phage therapy and antibiotics

"This congress has the potential to act as a catalyst to further cooperative and collaborative efforts to develop alternate Phage based approaches to the antibiotic crisis. In addition, the location in the Washington DC area will facilitate an opportunity for Government Agencies, responsible for public health, such as the NIH, FDA, USDA and DOD to participate and interact with educational research groups and biotechnology companies developing phage therapies and initiating clinical testing." - Carl Merril, Adaptive Phage Therapeutics

In attendance

Talk to Our Speakers About...

1. Addressing future antimicrobial resistance with phage evolution

2. Key translational skills

3. The applications of phage therapy

4. How to produce GMP compliant phage

5. The key considerations for designing clinical trials

6. Benefits of expanded access cases versus a full clinical trial

7. How microbiome related applications are opening up the field

8. How to target an appropriate host range

9. Why phage therapy is important for industry & where they see it going

Subject Access Requests: If you would like a copy of the data/information we hold about you, please email [email protected].

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The Speakers

Dr Steffanie Strathdee

Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences

University of California San Diego

Dr. Strathdee is an infectious disease epidemiologist who received her doctoral training at the University of Toronto. She is renowned for her research on the intersection of HIV and drug use, having generated >600 scholarly publications. She is Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences and Harold Simon Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Diego where she codirects the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics. She is married to Thomas L.

Dr Steffanie Strathdee

Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences

University of California San Diego

Dr. Strathdee is an infectious disease epidemiologist who received her doctoral training at the University of Toronto. She is renowned for her research on the intersection of HIV and drug use, having generated >600 scholarly publications. She is Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences and Harold Simon Professor of Medicine at the University of California San Diego where she codirects the Center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics. She is married to Thomas L. Patterson, Professor of Psychiatry at UC San Diego, where they co-direct a research and training program on the Mexico-US border.

Strathdee was recently credited with saving her husband’s life from a deadly superbug infection using bacteriophages –viruses that attack bacteria. The case, which involved cooperation from three universities, the U.S. Navy and researchers across the globe, shows how phage therapy is a future weapon against multi-drug resistant bacterial infections which are expected to kill 10 million people per year by 2050. Strathdee and Patterson co-authored a book on their story called The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug.

Prof Thomas Patterson

University of California San Diego School of Medicine

Prof Thomas Patterson

University of California San Diego School of Medicine

Dr Carl Merril

CSO and founder

Adaptive Phage Therapeutics

Dr. Merril, a 1962 graduate of Georgetown University Medical School studied phage biology and medical applications for over 5 decades at the NIH. His studies were inspired by participation in the Cold Spring Harbor Phage Biology Course in 1966 and they included: the interactions of phage and mammalian systems, the development of enhanced phage strains for use as antibacterial agents and the development of phage libraries as an aid in searching for phage for the treatment of individual clinical infections.

Dr Carl Merril

CSO and founder

Adaptive Phage Therapeutics

Dr. Merril, a 1962 graduate of Georgetown University Medical School studied phage biology and medical applications for over 5 decades at the NIH. His studies were inspired by participation in the Cold Spring Harbor Phage Biology Course in 1966 and they included: the interactions of phage and mammalian systems, the development of enhanced phage strains for use as antibacterial agents and the development of phage libraries as an aid in searching for phage for the treatment of individual clinical infections. An extensive, Phage library along with technologies needed to facilitate their use has recently been developed by the Naval Medical Research, Biological Defense Research Directorate and Infections Disease Departments. This technology has been licensed and a Cooperative Research Agreement has been established with Applied Phage Therapeutics (APT), a company cofounded by Dr. Carl Merril and his son , Gregory Merril, where they serve as the Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Executive Officer, respectively. The primary goal of APT and the Navy is to further the development and clinical appliations of phage, particularly for serious antibiotic resistant bacterial infections.

Martha Clokie

Professor of Microbiology

University of Leicester

My research focuses on identifying, characterising and developing bacteriophages (viruses) that target and kill bacterial pathogens of medical relevance with the view to identifying novel antimicrobials. I have published over 60 papers in both on the fundamental and applied aspects of bacteriophages. Clearly this work has been impacted by our increasing concerns regarding antibiotic resistance because bacteriophages as natural enemies of bacteria can either be exploited as natural viruses, or they may encode novel products with antimicrobial properties.

Martha Clokie

Professor of Microbiology

University of Leicester

My research focuses on identifying, characterising and developing bacteriophages (viruses) that target and kill bacterial pathogens of medical relevance with the view to identifying novel antimicrobials. I have published over 60 papers in both on the fundamental and applied aspects of bacteriophages. Clearly this work has been impacted by our increasing concerns regarding antibiotic resistance because bacteriophages as natural enemies of bacteria can either be exploited as natural viruses, or they may encode novel products with antimicrobial properties.

My work is rooted in an ecological framework which I use both for virus discovery and the manipulation of microbiota associated with disease. My major focus has been on Clostridium difficile where I have isolated and characterised a large bacteriophage collection, and where I have developed in vitro, ex situ and in vivo models to assess the mechanistic interactions of phages with their bacterial hosts and to assess their therapeutic potential. I am now developing these phages as therapeutics. I also have active projects to study bacteriophages that target many other bacterial species including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Streptococcus spp., Borrelia, Haemophilus and Salmonella.

In terms of my formal education and training, I obtained a BSc in Biology from Dundee University in 1996 an MSc in Biodiversity from Edinburgh University in 1997, and a PhD from Leicester in Molecular Ecology in 2001. I then did 6 years of Post-Doctoral research at the University of Warwick and in Scripps, La Jolla, San Diego. In 2007 I was appointed as a lecturer at Leicester, in 2011 a Reader and in 2016 I was promoted to Professor of Microbiology.

Dr Joe Campbell

Research Resources Project Officer

NIH (NIAID)

I am a program officer in the division of microbiology and infections diseases (DMID) in the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). My primary role is running the base contract under which our in vitro testing pre-clinical services are conducted (https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/vitro-assessment-antimicrobial-activity-resources). In addition, I am involved in the running of contracts in our pre-clinical models of diseases base contract (https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/pre-clinical-models-infectious-disease). Finally, I run DMID’s bacteriophage interest group. The goal of this group is to work with the FDA and other federal agencies to promote the clinical use of bacteriophages.

Dr Magda Barbu

Senior Director, Synthetic Biology

C3J therapeutics

Dr. Magda Barbu, Senior Director of Synthetic Biology, leads engineering efforts for C3J’s pipeline of phage therapeutics programs. Dr. Barbu is an established scientist with over 15 years of experience working with lytic and lysogenic phage in both industry and academia. Magda combines her deep expertise in molecular biology, phage biology, bacterial pathogenesis and antimicrobial drug development, to set strategy and deliver key preclinical data essential for advancing the synthetic phage programs from bench to clinic.

Dr Magda Barbu

Senior Director, Synthetic Biology

C3J therapeutics

Dr. Magda Barbu, Senior Director of Synthetic Biology, leads engineering efforts for C3J’s pipeline of phage therapeutics programs. Dr. Barbu is an established scientist with over 15 years of experience working with lytic and lysogenic phage in both industry and academia. Magda combines her deep expertise in molecular biology, phage biology, bacterial pathogenesis and antimicrobial drug development, to set strategy and deliver key preclinical data essential for advancing the synthetic phage programs from bench to clinic.

Dr. Barbu earned her Ph.D. in Microbiology/Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. Magda completed her postdoctoral training at the MD Anderson Cancer Center, which included identifying druggable targets for cancer and other diseases using in vivo phage display. She then worked at Synthetic Genomics, Inc. heading up development of the phage engineering platform and related assets, that were subsequently acquired by C3J Therapeutics. Magda has authored 18 peer-reviewed publications, presented worldwide as an invited speaker and received private and priority government grants for her research in antimicrobial therapeutics and synthetic biology. She has several patents pending.

Dr Biswajit Biswas

Dr Brian Varnum

Dr Brian Varnum

Chief Development Officer

C3J therapeutics

Dr. Varnum is a biotech veteran with more than twenty years of experience. Brian began his career with Amgen, and spent more than 18 years at the biotech pioneer as the company grew from a start-up to the largest and most successful biotechnology company. He started in discovery research where his team purified novel growth factors and advanced antibodies and small molecules into clinical studies. Brian also worked in development, assisting with clinical development of proteins, antibodies and small molecules. In this capacity, Brian contributed to key regulatory filings, market research and product launch, giving him experience in drug discovery and development from the lab bench to product launch and marketing.

After retiring from Amgen in 2007, Brian turned his focus to the start-up landscape, working in several capacities, including assisting investors, entrepreneurs and start-ups in the assessment of technologies for funding or in-licensing. In these capacities, Brian established research strategies and plans, and served as CSO for several companies, securing funding, and executing research contracts with large and mid-sized pharmaceutical companies.

Brian obtained his Ph.D. from UCLA studying oncogenes, and his drug development research experience includes hematopoietic growth factor discovery, oncology, auto-immune/inflammatory disorders, personalized medicine in IBD and infectious diseases.

Cara Fiore

Microbiologist

Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, FDA

Cara Fiore

Microbiologist

Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, FDA

Dr Kevin Yehl

Lead Phage Researcher

MIT

Dr Kevin Yehl

Lead Phage Researcher

MIT

Betty Kutter

Head of Bacteriophage Lab

Evergreen State College

Betty Kutter

Head of Bacteriophage Lab

Evergreen State College

Dr David Harper

CEO and CSO

Evolution Biotechnologies

My day job is as the CEO of Evolution Biotechnologies, moving environmentally friendly biological controls into the biomedical sector, based on the success of such agents in agriculture. This is based around low cost approaches minimising investor dilution while moving towards large potential markets.

Dr David Harper

CEO and CSO

Evolution Biotechnologies

My day job is as the CEO of Evolution Biotechnologies, moving environmentally friendly biological controls into the biomedical sector, based on the success of such agents in agriculture. This is based around low cost approaches minimising investor dilution while moving towards large potential markets.

Targets include the house dust mite, the main cause of asthma, where our novel approach underlies broad patent protection, and antibiotic resistant bacterial infections where individual veterinary treatments are already being undertaken. The company is building on its unique skillset in these key areas.

As to “something people may not know about me”…. After this meeting I will be flying back to the UK for just two days, during which I will be there for the tenth birthday of the youngest of my six children. I then leave the UK again next Monday to travel to Egypt, where I intend to spend two weeks largely underneath the Red Sea.

Dr Taylor Wallace

George Mason University

Taylor C. Wallace, PhD, CFS, FACN, is Principal and CEO at the Think Healthy Group and a Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at George Mason University. Prior to founding the Think Healthy Group, Dr. Wallace served as the Senior Director of Science Policy and Government Relations at the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) and the Senior Director of Scientific Programs at the National Bone Health Alliance (NBHA), a public-private partnership, managed and operated by the NOF.

Dr Taylor Wallace

George Mason University

Taylor C. Wallace, PhD, CFS, FACN, is Principal and CEO at the Think Healthy Group and a Professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at George Mason University. Prior to founding the Think Healthy Group, Dr. Wallace served as the Senior Director of Science Policy and Government Relations at the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) and the Senior Director of Scientific Programs at the National Bone Health Alliance (NBHA), a public-private partnership, managed and operated by the NOF. He has extensive experience in developing and implementing comprehensive and evidence-based legislative, policy, and regulatory programs in the fields of nutrition and food science. His academic research interests are in the area of nutritional interventions to promote health and prevent the onset of chronic disease. Dr. Wallace’s background includes a PhD and an MS in Food Science and Nutrition from The Ohio State University and a BS in Food Science and Technology from the University of Kentucky. In his free time, Dr. Wallace manages and operates a large food and nutrition blog, www.DrTaylorWallace.com, where he provides science-based nutrition, food safety, and food technology information to the general public and consumer media. Dr. Wallace has served on the Boards of Directors for the Institute of Food Technologists, Alliance for Food and Health, Feeding Tomorrow, and Phi Tau Sigma. He is a fellow of the American College of Nutrition and is the 2015 recipient of the Charles A. Regus Award, given by the American College of Nutrition for original research and innovation in the field of nutrition. Dr. Wallace is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Magnesium Education & Research, the Deputy Editor in Chief of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, Editor in Chief of the Journal of Dietary Supplements, the editor of six academic textbooks, and an author of over 40 peer-reviewed manuscripts and

Dr Catherine Loc-Carrillo

Internal Medicine - Research Assistant Professor

University of Utah

I obtained my Ph.D. from Nottingham University, UK in 2005, studying ‘Bacteriophage control of campylobacters in poultry production’ and have over 18-years of experience working with phages and medically important pathogens. I worked in the biotech industry between 2006 and 2009, developing phage-based products to detect foodborne pathogens and decontaminate food following regulatory guidelines. I moved back into academia in 2010 to work for the University of Utah.

Dr Catherine Loc-Carrillo

Internal Medicine - Research Assistant Professor

University of Utah

I obtained my Ph.D. from Nottingham University, UK in 2005, studying ‘Bacteriophage control of campylobacters in poultry production’ and have over 18-years of experience working with phages and medically important pathogens. I worked in the biotech industry between 2006 and 2009, developing phage-based products to detect foodborne pathogens and decontaminate food following regulatory guidelines. I moved back into academia in 2010 to work for the University of Utah. I’m currently a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Utah and a Research Scientist at the Salt Lake City Veterans Affair Medical Centre.

My research is focused in developing translational studies to prevention and treatment polymicrobial infections using experimentally infected animal models. My goal is to conduct well-controlled, impartial research to investigate the use of phages as biocontrol agents to clinically problematic infections, with particular emphasis on antibiotics resistant bacteria.

Dr Derek Holman

Stanford University

Derek Holman is a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine. His post-doctoral research focuses on the integration of label-free non-invasive chemical imaging into transcriptome platforms for precision medicine applications. He received his Ph.D. in 2016 from the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences where his research involved investigating neurocognitive dysfunction due to genetic disorder or mild-to-moderate brain injuries. This involves genetic manipulation of mice, precise sample preparation, and multi-modal molecular imaging.

Dr Derek Holman

Stanford University

Derek Holman is a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine. His post-doctoral research focuses on the integration of label-free non-invasive chemical imaging into transcriptome platforms for precision medicine applications. He received his Ph.D. in 2016 from the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences where his research involved investigating neurocognitive dysfunction due to genetic disorder or mild-to-moderate brain injuries. This involves genetic manipulation of mice, precise sample preparation, and multi-modal molecular imaging. Derek received his Bachelor degree in Chemistry from University of California at Berkeley.

Dr Breck Duerkop

Assistant Professor of Immunology & Microbiology

University of Colorado School of Medicine

Dr Breck Duerkop

Assistant Professor of Immunology & Microbiology

University of Colorado School of Medicine

Dr Nick Conley

Dr Nick Conley

Principal Scientist

Locus Biosciences

Dr. Nick Conley is Principal Scientist for Locus Biosciences. Before joining Locus in 2018, Nick was co-founder of EpiBiome, a South San Francisco-based precision microbiome engineering company that built the world’s first fully automated high-throughput phage discovery, characterization, and genomics platform, where he served in various roles, including CEO and Chief Science Officer. During this time, the company gained admission into Illumina Accelerator, Johnson & Johnson Innovation’s JLABS, and Stanford-StartX; secured non-dilutive funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the US Department of Defense; established a top-3 pharma partnership; and raised more than $10 million dollars in financing. Prior to EpiBiome, Nick was Staff Scientist at HGST, a Western Digital Company. Nick completed a postdoc in Developmental Biology at Stanford University, and he holds a PhD and BS in Chemistry from Stanford University and The University of Texas at Austin, respectively.

Dr Tobi Nagel

Dr Tobi Nagel

Founder & President

Phages for Global Health

Photo Credit: Mark Warren

Phages for Global Health is a nonprofit organization that facilitates the application of phages to combat antimicrobial resistance in developing countries.We accomplish this mission in two general ways: by delivering laboratory training workshops through which we teach scientists in developing countries how to isolate and characterize phages locally; and by partnering with developing world researchers to co-develop phage products for specific applications in their countries. Before founding Phages for Global Health, Tobi had 15 years experience in the pharmaceutical industry where she worked with international teams to co-develop products that have been tested in over 80 clinical trials worldwide.

Subject Access Requests: If you would like a copy of the data/information we hold about you, please email [email protected].

User Deletion Request: If you wish to have your information that is held by Kisaco Research deleted, please email [email protected].

For more information on Kisaco Research policy and procedures, please visit our Privacy Policy.

Poster Submission

Looking to showcase your recent work to the phage therapy community?

Our dedicated poster session is the perfect way to get your research noticed and further involve yourself in the congress. In order to present a poster at the forum you need to be registered as a delegate. Please note that there is limited space available and poster space is assigned on a first come first served basis (subject to checks and successful registration).

At the Congress, your presentation will be displayed in a dedicated poster area. The poster presentation session will take place at the afternoon networking break on day one.

The deadline has now passed for submissions.

Event Partners

Phagelux

Phagelux utilizes phages, lysins and other biologics and related delivery technologies to create antibacterial products and solutions. Phagelux is headquartered in Shanghai and has a cumulative of four research laboratories worldwide and also manufacturing facilities in both the United States and China. Phagelux has both HumanHealth and AgriHealth divisions (crop sciences, animal health and food safety). The HumanHealth Division has 5 products under development. The AgriHealth division has 3 products on the market with another 9 under development.

Our Mission

Phagelux aims to be a leading global anti-infectives company by utilizing various biological solutions to address bacterial problems across multiple industries, particularly targeting antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria.

Proteon Pharmaceuticals

PROTEON uses bacteriophages as the foundation for preventing and eradicating infectious diseases in animals, humans and plants. Bacteriophages are naturally occurring organisms in the microbiome.

Bacteriophages offer an exciting alternative to antibiotics in combating pathogenic bacteria including antibiotic resistant microbes (AMR). PROTEON’s therapeutic products are safe for human, animals and plants and are based on environmentally sustainable methods and approaches.

We have developed a unique phage-platform using proprietary tools and expertise in microbiology, DNA sequencing and bioinformatics. Our phage-platform enables continued discovery of new solutions for a wide variety of industries and applications.

Clean Cells

Clean Cells offers a comprehensive service portfolio ranging from test for viral and biological safety of biopharmaceuticals, the production of cell and virus banks that are GMP grade and secure storage, as well as the production of experimental drugs such as cell therapy products and therapeutic phages. Clean Cells aims to become a major role in the development of new therapies to revolutionize personalized medicine.

Cellexus

Cellexus was established in 2008, to develop a scalable single use bioreactor (SUB) for industrial and academic scientists to grow cell cultures in their laboratories, rapidly and in a controlled environment, for use in a wide range of applications including life sciences, brewing, biopharmaceutical and agricultural feed.

Media Partners

Viruses — Open Access Virology Journal

Viruses(ISSN 1999-4915) is an open access journal which provides an advanced forum for studies of viruses. We aim to help researchers present their cutting-edge findings and opinions in detail and have quick dissemination among their peers. Original articles, reviews, communications, conference reports and short notes are all welcome.

Viruses is covered by leading indexing services, including PubMed, Medline, the Science Citation Index Expanded (Web of Science), Scopus and other relevant databases. The Impact Factor (IF) for the year 2017 is 3.761.

Association Partners

Phage Directory

Phage Directory promotes and accelerates the safe and effective use of phages in medicine, agriculture, and biotechnology around the world. We provide insight and support to communities and organizations interested in understanding and using phages.

Phage Directory can support you to:

- Stay up-to-date on new developments in phage research and phage therapy

- Understand the regulatory, scientific and tech landscape around phages and phage therapy

The Bacteriophage Ecology Group

The Bacteriophage Ecology Group exists as a means of organizing the bacteriophage ecology community, fostering communication, identifying others with complementary interests, and, in general, empowering the science of bacteriophage ecology.

International Bacteriophage Research Consortium

Acharya Narendra Dev College (ANDC), University of Delhi, India and Open Health Systems Laboratory (OHSL), USA are building the global consortium of scientists working on Bacteriophages and Lysins.

The purpose of this consortium is to build Team Science: bring together scientists, academia, clinicians, and researchers to interact, share and collaborate on research on bacteriophages and their lytic enzymes, with an aim to contribute towards phage/lysin therapy. In the wake of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), bacteriophages and their Lysin enzymes offer a promising and viable alternate/complement therapy to antibiotics. By leveraging the expertise and resources of the consortium, we hope to make phage therapy a safe and acceptable solution to growing threat of AMR.

Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA)

The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) is a community of over 11,000 physicians, scientists and public health experts who specialize in infectious diseases. Our purpose is to improve the health of individuals, communities, and society by promoting excellence in patient care, education, research, public health, and prevention relating to infectious diseases.

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